


And that's what's in a name.

by amorremanet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 30 Days of SPN Women, Biblical References, Community: 100_women, Community: 500themes, Demons, Family, Female Friendship, Gen, Meg!demon's true name, Name all the unnamed characters, Name changing, Names, Nephilim, Reclaim all the narratives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Her name wasn't always Meg.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	And that's what's in a name.

Her name wasn't always Meg. This goes without saying, she supposes—Meg Masters was her meatsuit's name. Margaret Masters, technically. Margaret Josephine Masters, named for her grandmother and called 'Meg' so she'd be different—and she only finally made herself useful by donating her body and her name to Belial.   
  
No, not Belial—because her name isn't Belial anymore. It's Meg.   
  
She was born Belial, though, eons and eons back, in the land of Canaan even before that divine pissing contest that the ape-descended flesh-bags call a Flood. (As if—Meg wonders what these people would think if they knew the Flood's true story, how it only even started because their God got cranky with some of His children.) From her first day, Meg was her father's daughter, born of some human woman whose name Meg doesn't even recall, not after all this time. She remembers the woman's face, carved and stoic, lined before its time, textured like driftwood. She remembers the woman's voice, too, the way that she spoke like a wind in the desert, all breezy and gnarled and dry.   
  
In some vague way—and blame the lingering sentimentality she has, the same thing that keeps her from just doing in Dean Winchester; despite herself, Meg remembers how he was down in the Pit, how magnificent a demon he would've made, if not for that meddling little angel and his garrison… In some vague way, this sentimentality makes her think she ought to remember more about the woman who birthed and nursed her. After all, those actions made the bitch her mother, didn't they? Meg can't help laughing at herself for that. The woman wasn't her mother, not her real mother.   
  
More than anything else, Meg remembers how the woman sounded when she said the words that she used more often than Meg's old name:  _to'e'va_.  _Abomination_ —and  _shâqats_ , or  _abhorred_.  _Zâ'am_ —they were different words, but they all meant the same thing, just like the phrase from which Meg's birth name came:  _beli ya'al_.  ** _Without worth_** —Meg couldn't catch any kind of break from that crap, from being told that she was little more than trash—her very name meant that she was filth, dragged up from some lowest pit to torment her purported betters.  _Humanity_ , the worst of all the beasts He made—and they thought to insult Meg and her family. Offense and degradation lurked even the term that got thrown around for Meg and the other children like her.  
  
 _Nephilim_ , the people called them.  ** _Nephilim_** , "the ones who have fallen." "The ruiners." "The apostates." By nothing more than being born, they caused their fathers to fall from the angelic choirs—as though they'd somehow reached back through time to urge their fathers to couple with mortal women—as though anyone could make their fathers do anything. Well, what did that woman know? What did any of those rotting human meat-sacks know? Only that Meg's father had golden eyes, that he was some so-called  _Son of El_ —an angel, Meg would come to find out. A fallen one, though not because of her or her half-brother.  
  
His name was  _Azazel_ , "the strength of God," and he gave that strength to Meg. She held more of it than any other  _nephilim_ , for all it took long enough to manifest. For all it took long enough for him to come and find her, to take her away from the encampment she called home, promising her a new life, a better life. "You have immense power in you, daughter," he said, holding her to his chest and stretching out his massive wings. "So much potential… They could never even hope to understand you, with all their stone idols and misplaced worship. But there's a new God, the one I serve… He'll give you everything you've ever wanted and everything you've ever lacked."  
  
But Meg didn't get to meet this new God, not yet, not for centuries unnumbered. Not until she borrowed the body of a certain Judas Iscariot, made him betray his teacher and his closest friend, and for her trouble, her devoted servitude, her success in his cause, received a vision of Lucifer's glory. Right there in Gethsemane, Meg fell to the Iscariot's knees, enraptured and wide-eyed, agog at the blinding light, every fiber of her being burning just to glimpse him—and, yet, had she died in that moment, it would've pleased her well enough.  
  
Even then, she wouldn't spend much time in his Presence for several centuries more, and for all he gave her life a purpose, a leader and a goal, he wasn't the one who truly loved her.  
  
That one was Lilith, Meg's real mother, the one who cared for her. When they first met, Lilith wore the guise of a comely woman with white eyes and hair that, like her name meant, was the inky dark of night. Her father gave Meg to Lilith first, handed her off with a warning that this would hurt, would try all of Meg's endurance, but that it would be worth it—soon enough, Meg would see that all of the pain was worth it, that the ends justified the means.  
  
And it did hurt. Lilith broke Meg's bones, ripped apart her flesh and muscles, tore down into her memories and the deepest parts of her being—her combination of a soul and her father's Grace—and when she put Meg back together, it was as something new. A beautiful monster, hand-crafted for greatness in ways that Yahweh Elohim, the Lord of Hosts, the God of Armies, could never fathom, much less impart to the putrescent things He called His children.  
  
And, combing her fingers through Meg's hair, embracing her with a kindness that no one else had ever deigned to show her, Lilith cooed a promise: "In the meantime, sweetie, we'll reclaim your name—turn it into some statement of how you don't need these people or their opinions of you. But, someday… oh, someday, we'll find a name that suits you better. One that's truly worthy of you."  
  
Neither of them guessed that the most deserving name she found would be  _Meg_ , but then again, Meg's life has never lacked for surprises.


End file.
